A brief excursion.....

Well, more a diversion from talk of New Zealand really.

We've never quite worked out whether Chipshaker Jr is terribly forgetful or just plain lazy (although we suspect the latter). Whichever it is, he is forever leaving taps running, lights on and the toilet unflushed. So, not long after I'd got in from work today, I heard Mrs C upstairs, getting ready to go to work. Next, I heard her go into the bathroom then shout in that weary voice parents know so well..... "Junior, come here now please!" - He trots upstairs and I'm vaguely aware of the conversation

"You've not flushed this toilet again?"
"Yes, I'm sure I did this time, I swear I did Mum, honest"
"Well what's that then?!"

then I heard

FLUSH

"MICHAEL....MICHAEL.....COME UP HERE QUICK!!"

So I abandoned my warmed up evening meal, dashed upstairs to be confronted by the toilet absolutely brimming with not totally liquid, and not very clear water...and I do mean brimming - it was very much in danger of overflowing. For the scientifically minded of you out there, never before had an upper meniscus looked so threatening! After 10 seconds it became very clear that the bowl wasn't emptying, not even fractionally. At that point, like the faithful wife she is, Mrs C announced that she was late for work and was leaving!!

I then spent what felt like a lifetime, but was probably only 30 seconds, looking at it, and being bombarded by a rapid series of thoughts along the lines of.....

"Jesus, we are trying to sell the place and the bathroom looks like a Calcutta backstreet"
"As if I'm not spending enough money at the moment and now I'm about the fund the Dynarod Christmas party"

and, most terrifying of all

"Right....how the hell are we going to solve this without resorting to the unthinkable?"

I tried everything - jabbing a stick around, getting a piece of hosepipe up round the U-bend, I even (very carefully) blew down the hosepipe....I only did that once, for fear of backwash, or eventually forgetting which end had been submerged!

Sadly, there was nothing else for it other than to don the old yellow marigolds and go hunting. Having fished around a little, it became very apparent that the water was very full of .....lets just say....solid matter! The water level wouldn't go down and putting my hand in any deeper would have taken the water over the top of the gloves. So, there was nothing else for it but to start baling.

Once the pan was empty, it seemed safe to get my hand right under the U-bend but there was bugger all there, except the biggest collection of turds I'd ever encountered. I was retching heavily by this point but nothing was shifting and I couldn't believe that it was just the obvious blocking the bog. Something else had to be down there, so it was time for the heavy questioning.

"Right, what have you dropped down there?"
"Nothing Dad, honestly...nothing. I've just been to the toilet that's all"

Now either the kid has some weird bodily functions or there's a bit more to this than meets the eye. Time for the sink plunger. Initially, plunging just got the turds zipping around in the water, making the stench even worse. Then toilet paper started to come up. Thinking I'd cracked it, I flushed again.....and the pan brimmed once again! After at least four repeats of this process - bale, plunge, flush, brim, panic, bale, I finally got an almighty GLOOMP, and the whole lot shifted, nearly taking my arm with it.

Then the inquest resumed and, after some careful questioning, I got to the cause.

Turned out, Junior had had a really bad cold for most of last week, with Friday being particularly bad. Rather than sniffing, he'd at least done as he was told and spent most of the day blowing his nose. Unfortunately, after each blow, he'd left the toilet unflushed. Then, whenever he or anyone else went to the toilet for the usual, it would get flushed but he'd carry on blowing and blowing, eventually getting through two toilet rolls by using the juvenile dispensing method known as 'The Virtuous American' (ie a damn good yank), as opposed to the measured "two sheets" methods used by most adults.

To make it worse, it appears that, being inexperienced in the laws of work, the youngest had eschewed the time honoured method of "going on the boss's time" and had waited till she got home from school before undertaking her daily ablutions. Consequently, the loo had seen a lot of traffic that day. To make matters worse, Young Ms Chipshaker is more of a master of the Virtuous American method than her brother. She yanks as hard as she can, then gathers it all up from the floor and chucks it into the pan without even worrying about whether there's an Andrex puppy in there somewhere.

In effect, they'd spent most of the day filling the toilet with wadding in a way that a veteran gunner on HMS Victory would have been proud of, only for them to crap like the very devil on top of it and then compact it with more toilet paper on top.

Turns out, Junior hadn't left it unflushed as such, but rather the last flush had compacted it so much, it blocked solid and the last deposit had made a reappearance for Mrs C to discover.

So, after a long and dull week at work, I spent most of Friday evening up to my elbows in shite and fighting a losing battle to retain my evening meal. I didn't feel much like a drink after that!

Ringa pakia, Uma tiraha